1/72 F6F-5 Hellcat

My attempt to make headway on my stash of unbuilt kits settled on a second 1/72 Academy F6F this week. In 2021 I built this kit as Alex Vraciu's F6F-3 - https://imodeler.com/2021/08/f6f-3-hellcat-1-72-minicraft-academy/. This time I would build the kit as a F6F-5 in overall Glossy Sea Blue.

I tried Doogs Models' recommendation to thin my paint down, and at a 1:1 ratio the paint went down as smoothly as an I've ever applied. I had a lot of decal options, having picked up 2 1/2 more sets of Hellcat decals in Austin last month, and finally decided on Lt. Leo B. McCuddin's "71" of VF-20 on the USS Enterprise (CV-6) in October of 1944. I included a white drop tank - photos showed both white and Sea Blue at the time - and a pair of bombs.

The last photo against the F6F-3 shows just how bad my airbrushing could be in 2021. The paint wasn't good, but the matt topcoat was atrocious. It still spattered on the F6F-5, but not as much.